A/N: I am late I know...but as story is becoming longer and longer, I am kind of getting cold feet and writer blocks writing the chapter. this is the first time I have written something this long (250k words counting) and only now did I realize how much non-obvious effort it takes to write. Its like there is an weight on my shoulder which makes writing every word an contemplative affair rather than an instinctive one. So pardon me for the slow updates.
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The desert night stretched around us, silent save for the whisper of wind against sand. I sat at the bottom of the crater I'd apparently created with my mind, while Obi-Wan stood above me, his shadow long against the dunes.
Obi-Wan remained silent for a long moment after I finished explaining, his expression unreadable in the dim light. The wind tugged at his cloak, and I found myself counting the seconds, my stomach twisting tighter with each one.
"I see," he said finally, his voice measured in that way that told me absolutely nothing about what he was thinking.
Then his brow furrowed. "And you felt this was not worth mentioning before?"
Oh shit, here we go.
"It's not exactly something you bring up in casual conversation," I said, the words coming out more defensive than I intended. "What was I supposed to say? 'Hey, by the way, I've got two glowing balls in my head and one's leaking?' That sounds like the setup to a really bad joke."
"If you suspected it was affecting your connection to the Force, that was something I needed to know."
"I didn't suspect it," I said quickly, then caught myself. "I mean, I did, kind of, but it was just a feeling. A vague one. And it sounded completely insane even to me."
I rubbed the back of my neck, wincing as my fingers found one of Arachnae's zap marks.
"Plus, you know, with everything else going on, with the visions and the training and the whole mess with Hett, it kept getting pushed to the back of my mind. Every time I thought about bringing it up, I'd think about how ridiculous it would sound and just... didn't."
That was mostly true. The real reason I hadn't mentioned it was because explaining the twin stars meant potentially explaining why there were two distinct souls in one body, and that was a conversation I absolutely could not have. The moment I started down that road, questions would pile up, and eventually someone would connect the dots to possession or body-snatching or whatever horrifying conclusion made sense in a galaxy with Force ghosts and Sith rituals.
But Obi-Wan didn't need to know that part.
He sighed, the sound barely audible over the desert breeze. "Very well. I cannot fault you for hesitating to share something so unusual."
The knot in my stomach loosened slightly. He believed me. Or at least, he was willing to act like he did.
"Assuming what you're telling me is true," Obi-Wan continued, his tone shifting to something more analytical, "this substance is inside you and causing these problems? As well as your apparently stronger connection to the Force?"
"Yeah, that's what I could understand from what I saw." I paused, choosing my words carefully. "Though I'd say it's more like a repaired connection with the wrong tools rather than a stronger connection. Like someone fixed a broken pipe by welding it back together with scrap metal. Sure, water flows through it now, but there's rust in the system."
Obi-Wan rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Your intuition about it being malevolent seems truer to me than assuming it's benevolent."
"Right?" I gestured emphatically. "Labeling a black parasitic thing in my soul as helpful would be like calling a sarlacc pit a spa treatment. It screams red flag."
"Indeed."
Silence settled between us again. Obi-Wan's gaze drifted past me, toward the horizon where the stars met the sand. I could practically hear the gears turning in his head, working through the problem from every angle.
I waited. What else could I do? I'd laid out everything I could without crossing into dangerous territory. The ball was in his court now.
"This is beyond my expertise," Obi-Wan admitted after a long moment. "The Force can manifest in unusual ways, particularly in those with strong connections, but what you're describing is outside the scope of anything I learned at the Temple."
My chest tightened. I'd been hoping he'd have some ancient Jedi wisdom to pull out, some technique or meditation that could fix this. Hearing him admit he didn't know was like watching my last lifeline fray.
"So what do we do?" I asked, and I hated how small my voice sounded.
Obi-Wan was quiet for several seconds, his expression distant. I could see him working through options, discarding them, considering others. His hand came up to stroke his beard in that way he did when he was thinking particularly hard about something.
Was he thinking about Yoda? The thought hit me suddenly. Dagobah was out there somewhere, and if anyone in the galaxy might know about weird soul shit, it would be the nine-hundred-year-old green gremlin who'd trained Jedi for centuries.
But going to Dagobah meant traveling across the galaxy. If I kept having these Force spasms along the way, I'd be leaving a trail of breadcrumbs straight to the swamp. Every disturbance would be another marker, another clue for anyone hunting Force sensitives to follow. The last thing the galaxy needed was for me to accidentally lead the Empire to the last Jedi Grandmaster because I couldn't control my own soul.
"Right now," Obi-Wan said finally, pulling me from my thoughts, "I need more information before I can suggest a course of action."
"Great," I muttered. "So we're at square one."
"Not entirely. You've identified the source of your difficulties, which is progress." He looked down at me, his expression grave. "But Ezra, the disturbance I felt when you were in your mindscape was considerable. If this substance continues to grow, or if your attempts to control it create more outbursts like this one—"
"Yeah, I know," I cut him off. "It's a problem."
"It could become more than a problem."
I pushed myself to my feet, ignoring the protest from my ribs. The movement felt necessary, like I needed to be standing for this conversation even if it hurt.
"The disturbance you felt just now," I said, "was it stronger than the one on the ship?"
Obi-Wan's eyes narrowed slightly. "Yes. Noticeably so. Why?"
"Because I have a feeling it's not going to get smaller."
The words hung in the air between us. Obi-Wan's expression shifted, understanding dawning.
"That's going to be a problem," he said quietly.
"Only a problem?" I let out a harsh laugh. "That's generous."
"Very well. It may become a significant problem." His tone was dry, but there was concern underneath it. "Had the Inquisitors still been on this planet during that outburst, they almost certainly would have sensed the disturbance, if not the precise direction. Your decision to misdirect them to Crimson Dawn did buy us valuable time."
"Yeah, great." I ran a hand through my hair, feeling the grit of sand that had worked its way into everything. "But if the intensity keeps increasing, there goes any hope of staying under the radar."
Obi-Wan's expression shifted into something that might have been amusement if the situation wasn't so dire. "Under the radar? Ezra, if these disturbances continue to grow at this rate, we'll be fortunate if you don't accidentally launch everyone around you into orbit."
"That's not funny."
"It wasn't meant to be."
I groaned and pressed my palms against my helmet, the cool metal doing nothing to ease the pressure building behind my eyes. This was too much. The whole situation was too much.
I'd been running on fumes and desperation since Vasha disappeared, operating on the assumption that if I could just get strong enough, fast enough, I could fix everything. That timeline was already compressed to hell, but I'd been managing it. Barely.
But this? This threw everything into chaos.
If my Force presence was going to keep flaring like a goddamn beacon every time the black substance did whatever the hell it was doing, then every plan I'd made was worthless. I couldn't infiltrate Scarif if every Inquisitor in the sector could sense me coming from three systems away. I couldn't move quietly, couldn't operate in the shadows, couldn't do any of the things I'd been counting on to actually pull off a rescue.
And worse, staying here meant putting Luke in danger. If the Empire tracked one of these disturbances back to Tatooine, if Vader himself showed up to investigate, then the whole future went up in smoke. Luke was supposed to be the hero. The Chosen One 2.0. The kid who'd eventually blow up the Death Star and redeem his father and save the galaxy from the Emperor.
Me? I was just a guy trying to save one person. My contribution to the greater good of the universe was supposed to be staying the fuck out of Luke's way until he was old enough to matter.
But now I was a walking disaster that could bring the Empire straight to his doorstep.
I started pacing, my boots crunching in the sand. The movement helped, gave me something to focus on besides the growing sense of panic trying to claw its way up my throat.
"There has to be something," I said, more to myself than to Obi-Wan. "Some way to suppress it, or control it, or at least keep it from turning me into a Force signal flare."
"If such a technique exists, I'm not aware of it."
I spun to face him. "You traveled with Qui-Gon for years. You fought in the Clone Wars, dealt with all kinds of weird Force phenomena. You're telling me you never encountered anything like this?"
"I'm telling you exactly that." Obi-Wan's voice was steady, but I could see the frustration in his eyes. "When you collapsed on the ship, I attempted to examine you through the Force. I found nothing unusual. Even now, looking at you, I sense nothing different beyond the standard presence of a Force-sensitive individual."
"So it's invisible to you."
"Apparently so."
"Perfect." I resumed pacing, my mind racing through possibilities and discarding them just as quickly. "Just fucking perfect."
The worst part was that I could feel it now. That constrictive sensation from the black substance, pressing against my awareness from the inside. Knowing what it was made it impossible to ignore. It was like becoming aware of your own breathing and then being unable to stop noticing it.
Every plan I'd made, every timeline I'd calculated, all of it was built on assumptions that were now compromised. I couldn't do this alone. I needed help, needed someone who actually understood what was happening to me.
But who? Obi-Wan had already admitted he was out of his depth. The Jedi were gone. The only Force users left were either Imperial lapdogs, hermits in hiding, or ancient things that should probably stay buried.
I stopped pacing and looked at Obi-Wan, who had closed his eyes in what looked like deep meditation.
"I can't stay here," I said.
His eyes opened. "What?"
"I can't stay on this planet for long." The words came out flat, matter-of-fact. "If this hypothesis about the disturbances increasing is correct, then eventually something is going to come sniffing around to investigate. Inquisitors at best, Vader at worst. And I'm not about to be responsible for leading them straight to Luke Skywalker."
Obi-Wan was silent for a long moment. The weight of that silence pressed down on me harder than the black substance ever could.
"You're suggesting you leave," he said finally.
"I'm stating the obvious."
My own situation was one thing. I could take risks with my life because, frankly, I'd already died once and the second time would probably be less surprising. But Luke? That kid was carrying the future of the galaxy on his shoulders whether he knew it or not.
I'd seen what was coming. Not just the Empire and Palpatine, but everything after. The Yuuzhan Vong invasion that would kill trillions. The resurgence of the Sith. Ancient dark siders crawling out of their tombs. Abeloth, whatever the hell that thing was. The galaxy needed Luke Skywalker to survive and become strong enough to face all of it.
And it wasn't just Luke. If I somehow led the Empire to Yoda because I couldn't stop broadcasting my presence across the galaxy, that would be game over. The last Grandmaster, the one person who might be able to train Luke properly when the time came, gone because of my screwup.
I was replaceable. They weren't.
There was something else too, something nagging at the back of my mind. A feeling that I was forgetting something important, some threat I should be accounting for. But I couldn't pin it down, and now wasn't the time to complete the galaxy's danger bingo card when my own survival odds were dropping by the minute.
Luke absolutely needed to live. Taking on the burden of saving the galaxy was something my broken self could never do. All I wanted was to save Vasha, make sure she was safe and set up somewhere she could actually have a life. Everything else was optional.
Even my own survival was optional if it came down to it.
"And where would you go?" Obi-Wan asked.
"I don't know yet." I looked down at my hands, at the sand still clinging to my gloves. "But I know I can't figure it out here. And I definitely can't figure it out while worrying about leading the Empire straight to Luke Skywalker."
Obi-Wan's expression shifted into something I couldn't quite read. Surprise, maybe? Or confusion?
"You care about the boy," he said, and it wasn't quite a question. "Luke. I hadn't realized."
"I've seen the future," I said quietly. "I know how important he is to it. I can take risks because I'm just one guy. But him? He can't be risked. Not for me, not for anyone."
The wind picked up, sending sand swirling around us. Arachnae chirped softly from where she still clung to the crater's edge, her sensors tracking our conversation.
"I need to figure out what this is," I continued, gesturing vaguely at myself. "I have plans. Things I need to do. And all of them are impossible in my current state."
My voice came out rougher than intended. The exhaustion was starting to catch up with me, mixing with the fear and frustration into something that felt dangerously close to despair.
"Every plan I had relied on me being able to move quietly," I said. "To slip in and out without being noticed. But if I'm broadcasting my presence like a lighthouse in the Force, then all of that goes out the window. I need to adapt. Find a new approach. And I need to do it fast."
Obi-Wan studied me for a long moment, something weighing heavily behind his eyes. I could see the internal struggle playing out, the way his jaw tightened and his shoulders tensed. He opened his mouth, then closed it. Started to speak, hesitated.
Finally, he sighed, the sound heavy with weariness and something that might have been regret.
"I will need to settle some affairs before we can—"
"You cannot, Master," I interrupted, the words coming out sharper than I intended. "What you guard here is far more important than me. Especially after the disturbances that battle with Hett and I caused."
Obi-Wan's eyebrows rose, genuine surprise flickering across his face. He stared at me like he was seeing something unexpected, something that didn't quite fit with whatever mental image he'd been carrying around.
"Master, I understand your role here," I said, softer this time. "And this is something I have no intention of disrupting. At least, not without having the strength to calm the waves those disruptions would cause."
The self-deprecating laugh that escaped me sounded hollow even to my own ears.
Obi-Wan sighed, and when he spoke, his voice carried the weight of genuine conviction.
"Don't be like that, Ezra. You are special, perhaps not in the ways you seem to expect, but trust your master's judgment on this. Don't belittle yourself."
I blinked, caught off guard by the firmness in his tone.
"Now, I may not know much about what you're experiencing," he continued, stroking his beard thoughtfully, "but I was never a scholar. There are resources, temples of the Jedi hidden across the galaxy beyond even the Empire's reach, places that hold the wisdom of the ancients. They can help you pass this trial."
Hope flickered in my chest, small but stubborn. Hidden temples. Ancient knowledge. Maybe there was a path forward after all, even if I couldn't see it yet.
Then a sharp ringing sound cut through the night air.
The noise came from Obi-Wan's robes, and immediately my stomach dropped. Something about the timing felt wrong, like the universe itself had decided to throw another curveball just when things were starting to make sense.
Obi-Wan frowned and reached into his cloak, pulling out a small holocomm. He glanced at the display, and I saw his expression shift into something guarded and concerned.
He pressed the receiver.
The blue holographic projection flickered to life, resolving into two faces. A man with graying hair and sharp, diplomatic features. A woman with kind eyes and an air of quiet strength.
"Old friend," the man said, his voice tight with barely concealed urgency. "I fear that we might direly need your help."
I stared at Bail Organa's hologram.
Oh goddammit.
Of all the times for this to happen. Of all the possible moments for the plot to come crashing back in like a meteor through a viewport, it had to be right fucking now.
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A/N: Next chapter finally starts the galactic adventure yay!
New week, new rankings. throw in the powerstones!